💸 10x More STRC Paydays
🪙 A New Role for Stablecoins and Bitcoin
💰 Yield Recap
📈 Weekly Market Review

I read two pieces this week that point to where Bitcoin is heading.

The first is Strategy’s proposal to move STRC from semi-monthly to daily dividends. The proposal makes STRC more compatible with onchain financial products. USDh is the easiest way to access STRC yield without taking direct price exposure, and the new cadence would flow through automatically if approved.

The second, BlackRock’s The Machine-Native Economy, a paper connecting AI agents, stablecoins and Bitcoin. It makes the case for stablecoins as transactional money for machines and Bitcoin as a longer-term reserve asset. USDh is already one of the first forms of digital money sitting at that intersection.

USDh reserve assets were unaffected by the Bitget security incident.

Bitget is an execution venue for our delta-neutral basis strategy, but USDh reserve assets remain off-exchange through Copper’s settlement infrastructure. All Bitget positions were unwound as a precaution.

More on USDh’s security and settlement architecture.

STRC is moving toward a payday every business day. 

Strategy has proposed moving STRC from semi-monthly to daily dividends, with every calendar day becoming a record date and payment following on the next business day. The economics remain unchanged, but dividends would be paid ~10x more often.

STRC is increasingly becoming a building block for onchain finance. More than $420 million of reported STRC AUM now spans stablecoins, DeFi, tokenization, funds and yield products, including Hermetica. Daily distributions shorten reinvestment lag and make Bitcoin-backed credit better suited to financial products that operate continuously.

USDh is the easiest way to earn STRC yield without taking direct STRC price exposure. If approved, the new daily cadence will flow through USDh automatically, with no action required from holders.

AI-native economies will need both stablecoins and Bitcoin.

BlackRock published The Machine-Native Economy, a paper exploring the relationship between AI agents, stablecoins, and Bitcoin. Agents buying data, compute, and software need money that can move continuously, settle quickly, and operate with limited human intervention, making stablecoins a natural transactional layer.

Stablecoins will handle payments in the machine economy, while Bitcoin will hold value between transactions. Its scarcity and global liquidity make it the natural reserve asset for AI agents. Bitcoin Policy Institute simulations cited by BlackRock reflect this division, with models favoring stablecoins for payments and Bitcoin for longer-term value preservation.

USDh combines both in one asset, creating a first-of-its-kind form of money for the machine economy. It is dollar-denominated, moves onchain, and earns yield through Bitcoin capital markets.

The machine economy is still in its earliest stages, and so is the money it will use. USDh gives you early access to a category that is only beginning to form.

For the full simulations behind BlackRock's thesis, read the paper.

Good news: another week has passed.

Better news: it paid.

hBTC: 1.0%
USDh: 8.0%

Bitcoin extended last week’s recovery, reaching $87,000 before settling near $84,600. BTC remains above the 7-day SMA near $84,100 and, more importantly, above the 360-day SMA around $79,600, which had capped the recovery through August and early September. The strongest support came from institutional demand, with U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recording $998.95M of net inflows on Monday, their largest daily inflow in 11 months.

The move lost some momentum earlier in the week as higher rates weighed on risk assets. The 10-year Treasury yield climbed above 5.1%, raising the hurdle for BTC to extend the rally even as ETF inflows continued. The market also absorbed a major security incident at Bitget involving roughly $351.6M in assets without reversing the rally, underscoring the strength of underlying demand.

Data Summary:

Simple Moving Averages (SMAs) in Figure 1:

Bitcoin is trading at ~$84,623 after breaking above $87,000 earlier in the week. The pullback has so far held around the 7-day SMA near $84,076. Near-term support sits at $84,000-$84,100, with the more important support zone at $79,500-$80,000, where the 30-day and 360-day SMAs are clustered. Resistance is now $87,000-$87,400, followed by $90,000. BTC has cleared the previous $80,000-$82,000 resistance zone, and the next test is whether buyers can keep price above the high-$80,000s despite higher Treasury yields.

Net inflows totaled $2.25B this week.

Spot Bitcoin ETF flows strengthened from $6.21M of net inflows last week. The week opened with $998.95M of inflows on September 21, the largest single-day inflow in 11 months and the strongest day of 2026, beginning a run of four consecutive positive sessions. Cumulative net inflows now stand at $57.41B, while total spot Bitcoin ETF net assets have risen to $108.92B. September is now firmly positive at $2.56B month-to-date, reversing the outflows seen earlier in the month.

DVOL fell to 35.30% from 35.79% last week, keeping Bitcoin implied volatility near the bottom of its one-year range. IV Rank is 3.5 and IV Percentile 4.1, even after BTC traded above $87,000. One-week ATM volatility also fell to roughly 31.7%, showing that options markets still expect relatively contained price swings.

The low-volatility regime looks increasingly structural. Options open interest remains high near $41B, while the roughly $16B quarterly expiry has concentrated dealer hedging around current prices. That can keep Bitcoin’s short-term moves contained, as dealers sell into rallies and buy into dips. Systematic volatility selling adds further option supply and pushes implied volatility lower. Volatility has now fallen far enough that some professional desks no longer see much value in selling it further.

The equal-weighted basis across observed maturities rose to 4.92% APR from 4.60% last week. The curve remains positive and has flattened considerably, with all visible maturities now clustered between 4.78% and 5.08%. October 2 is the curve high at 5.08%, while October 9 is the low at 4.78%, leaving a spread of just 0.30 percentage points.

Carry strengthened across the curve, with November 27 and March 2027 both near 5%. The tighter range suggests futures demand has become more consistent across maturities, without signs that traders are aggressively adding leveraged long positions.

The 10-year Treasury yield crossed 5% this week, closing Thursday at 5.18%. The 30-year closed at 5.47%. 

September’s Purchasing Managers’ Index, a survey that tracks business activity, showed that the economy was still running hot. The index rose from 56.0 to 58.4, employment grew at its fastest pace in more than four years and input costs climbed at their fastest rate in nearly four years. That combination gives the Federal Reserve more reason to keep interest rates high, pushing long-term yields higher and making borrowing more expensive.

Brent briefly fell below $100 before climbing back above $105 as geopolitical tensions renewed concerns about supply. The U.S. and China also extended their trade truce by two months. This delays higher tariffs, but leaves the larger disputes over technology, rare earths and agriculture unresolved.

Bitcoin still rallied into the mid-$80,000s despite higher Treasury yields and oil remaining above $100. Strong ETF demand has helped support the move, but rising long-term yields remain the clearest obstacle to a sustained breakout.

Sincerely,
The Hermetica Team